There's something special about Edward Norton onscreen that's hard to identify, though impossible to miss. His appeal is not a matter of compelling energy or great looks. It has more to do with the pleasure of seeing someone at home in his own skin and of seeing thoughts play out on an intelligent person's face. Norton's mental processes are always clear and often original, making his characters seem radiantly reasonable, even when deranged. Norton shows us how they arrive at their conclusions.

"Down in the Valley" adds one more to Norton's gallery of rational wackos, and if there's a reason to see this movie, that's it. He plays Harlan, a gas station attendant who starts dating Tobe, a girl barely of legal age (Evan Rachel Wood). Harlan sees himself as a modern-day cowboy, and for Tobe (and the audience), he exerts a cowboy appeal -- he's quiet, courteous, too confident to take offense at slights and eager to gain the trust of the girl's father (David Morse). But Dad wants nothing to do with him. He takes one look at Harlan and loathes him. He sees something in his personality that doesn't add up.

The movie, written and directed by David Jacobson, at first seems like a sensitive character study, albeit with some ominous undertones. There's that Sundance staple the lonely guitar soundtrack and a languorous pace, suggesting one of two things: either a sensitive, forlorn movie about people struggling to make connections in an emotionally barren void, or a psychologically perceptive sketch of an especially interesting lunatic. Alas, it's neither, nor is it something more interesting. In the end, it's really just a thriller, slower than most, with pockets of dead time but with a few extra flourishes, too, thanks to Norton.

Who is this guy? That question keeps the audience on its toes during the first minutes, as Harlan and Tobe meet, and he charms her with his modest manner and retro style. He's obviously too good to be true, but the extent to which he falls short is not immediately clear. At this stage, the writer-director seems in possession of a compelling situation (the clash between Harlan and the girl's father) and a complex character. But the movie lets the clash between the men go dead for long stretches, and the first hint that Jacobson doesn't have much to reveal about the character comes when we see Harlan in his room, playing with his guns and fantasizing about having an elaborate shootout with the police. Aha! Now we understand. The style, the manner, the cowboy hat -- these are mere accoutrements to his true identity, a generic nut.

From that point on, it gets worse.

-- Advisory: This film contains violence and sexual situations.

-- Mick LaSalle

'Somersault'

Drama. Starring Abbie Cornish and Sam Worthington. Written and directed by Cate Shortland. (Not rated. 102 minutes. At the Lumiere.)

"Somersault" is about a 16-year-old girl in a woman's body who, when faced with adult decisions, behaves like, well, a teenager. This indie flick, which swept the Australian version of the Oscars and showed in competition at Cannes two years ago, is heartfelt, painful, exhilarating and, above all, truthful.

Heidi, a fresh-faced blonde who is beginning to look womanly (and played excellently by Abbie Cornish), is a lonely girl who cannot process her sexual awakening. When she is caught making an advance on her mother's boyfriend (who reciprocates, by the way), she runs away.

She takes a bus to a remote village near a ski resort, where a boy she once met lives. Although he had said to look him up if she traveled out that way, he hangs up on her and refuses to see her.

She goes to a bar and allows herself to be picked up, ending up at a motel, where the owner gives her a room in back. She gets a job at a gas station. She has no plans, no direction -- she is operating entirely on instinct.

Eventually, she meets the handsome son of a rancher, Joe (Sam Worthington). He doesn't instantly demand sex from her, like the other men; by comparison, his courting methods are old-fashioned. But Joe has problems of his own; he drinks a bit too much and he feels disconnected from his family, the family business and his friends.

There are no big dramatic rises and falls in writer-director Cate Shortland's feature debut, just a sense of confused lives unfolding. In a way, with its sober examination of a young woman adrift, it echoes Maurice Pialat's "À Nos Amours" (1983, due out on DVD next month) and Ashley Judd's feature film-starring debut, "Ruby in Paradise" (1993).

The last 45 minutes of the movie, where there are couple of strange scenes with unlikely behavior by its characters, and a little too much emphasis on Joe's plight, is not quite as strong as the first hour, but Shortland remains admirably committed to her story and pacing, and finds a creative resolution that avoids cliche.

One of the first significant roles for an Asian American man in Hollywood was the title character of Cecil B. DeMille's 1915 silent classic, "The Cheat." The lead was the handsome Japanese-born Sessue Hayakawa, who became a matinee idol during that era. It was simultaneously a breakthrough and an unfortunate template -- as the title would suggest -- for the "yellow peril" films, in which Asian men may seem nice but usually have a nefarious trick up their sleeves. They don't get the girl, either.

In the 1960s and '70s, the romantic leading man James Shigeta ("Flower Drum Song") and the action hero Bruce Lee ("Enter the Dragon") shattered myths of Asian American evil and impotence, leading to -- what, exactly? Not much.

And so we have "The Slanted Screen," an entertaining and informative documentary, generously loaded with film clips, about the plight of the Asian American actor onscreen and speculation on what the future might bring (the film "Better Luck Tomorrow" and actor Daniel Dae Kim of television's "Lost" are two recent phenomena that bode well).

Directed by Jeff Adachi, better known as San Francisco's public defender (whose election was the subject of another documentary, "Presumed Guilty: Tales of the Public Defenders"), the film is peppered with interviews, including of Shigeta, whose unprecedented run of leading parts in the late '50s and early '60s -- including two movies in which he landed a white leading lady -- has, sadly, been unmatched. Other thoughts come from the Oscar-winning Mako ("The Sand Pebbles"), Jason Scott Lee and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa ("Memoirs of a Geisha"), among others.

Adachi keeps everything on track, and the best part of "The Slanted Screen" are the film clips and the stories of some past legends. I had forgotten that Hayakawa, who is now mainly known as the elderly Col. Saito, the camp commandant in "The Bridge on the River Kwai," was once a young, dashing and popular leading man.

Philip Ahn could have succeeded Hayakawa in that capacity, but the American-born man of Korean ancestry had the bad luck of coming of age during the race-baiting "Fu Manchu" years of the 1930s and the World War II era, during which he often played Japanese heavies. His greatest fame came in old age, when he was wise Master Kan on the television series "Kung Fu."

Still, Adachi believes the future is bright, and "The Slanted Screen" is obviously a labor of love.

Note: All showings of "The Slanted Screen" during its Roxie run will be preceded by Linda Lee's seven-minute film "Screen Test," about the exoticization of actors of color from the performer's point of view.